Why is it that in renissance and classical paintings and art the women are chubby?

Question

Why is it that in renissance and classical paintings and art the women are chubby?

Answer 1

In those days having meat on your bones was a good thing. Poor people couldn't eat much and starvation was a real concern. To be chubby meant that a person was well off and could afford a lot of food, thus it was the standard of beauty for the time.

Answer 2

The women were painted and drawn chubbier and more voluptuous because that was the ideal figure for the woman during the renaissance and centuries after. It meant the woman was healthy, it meant that she was fertile, she was in totality, a woman. As an above poster said, they could have been painted that way for another reason; it was more interesting to paint and more interesting to look at.

Answer 3

The Western beauty standard was different in the Renaissance than it is today. That is to say, what Western society considered beautiful was a little different then than what is it now. Heavier women were closer to the standard for the time, as well as women with smaller breasts, longer hair, and paler skin. (Women used to use all sorts of terrifying products to make their skin appear paler, including some with a lead base.) It's a pretty sharp contrast to the skinnier/toned, tanned standard popular culture has today.

Answer 4

These answers are culturally correct but there is an artistic reason as well.

Putting it delicately, voluptuous women are generally more interesting for artists to paint than skinny women. There's more to look at. It's like painting an undulating, hilly landscape as opposed to painting a flat, nondescript landscape.

Answer 5

i find it really interesting that during the renaissance, a woman's body said "yes, i am wealthy enough to feed myself well, and i will not starve due to a bad winter," and then in the last 200 years, they've been cultivating an image that says something more like "my wealth is so steady that i can afford to not overfeed myself. i do not need to be chubby because i will never experience hardship"

Answer 6

It was considered attractive back then. Probably because there weren't a lot of chubby people around, most of them ill-fed. To have a good plumpness about you made you pretty good looking.

Answer 7

Heavier women used to be considered more attractive, having more weight was a symbol of wealth becuase you didn't need to go hungry like some skinnier people.

Answer 8

Being chubby back then ment ur beautiful like in Africa if ur chubby it means ur healthy another example budda wasant fat he was made to look fat because it meant wealth , and power